GWTW - forging onwards.

I'm so pleased that I've finally found my groove for quilting this quilt!  To be sure, there has been a LOT of rolling and re-rolling (but NOT Rickrolling!), advancing the quilt and backing it off .. just to be able to quilt in the areas that needed to be quilted.

BUT, I'm happy to say, at this point,

• the top & bottom borders of free-motion, meandering feathers have been done
• all the areas that contain the appliques have been stitched in the ditch
• all the appliques have been outline stitched and have curved, radiating lines emanating from the center.  These curved lines really accentuate the applique picture, rather like a spot-light.  I hope it looks as good when looking at the entire quilt as they do individually!
• some of the expanded figure-8 background fill has been done.  I'm sufficiently content with this design to keep it.
• all of the tails created from the NUMEROUS starts & stops (*so* annoying!) have been tied and buried

I got the idea of the radiating lines from this picture, which I found from a Google/Image search.

I chose curved, radiating lines for a softer look than the straight lines convey.  I was able to stitch the curved lines very nicely with the use of Linda Mae's Rays curved ruler.   I bought that specific ruler because you can not only do straight radiating lines but you can also do the curved lines.  The ruler has a handy hole at the center spot so you can anchor your ruler to a specific spot on the quilt.

Next up: continuous curves in the diagonal squares.  It would be *really* nice to be able to make one long diagonal pass for as along as there are squares to stitch, but practically speaking, that's not going to happen.  My workspace is about 12" deep, so the longest diagonal that I can do is about 17" before I need to tie off and bury the tail.

Take a look at the picture above (the one with the quilted radiating lines).  There's a set of 4 squares going in a southeast-to-northwest direction.  All of the squares in that direction can have the continuous curves quilted in one pass.

But the squares going in the southwest-to-northeast direction don't stop after four squares ... they continue on and on and on.  Those are the ones that I anticipate just a whole lot more rolling and re-rolling to get stitched.

My goodness, there is just no END to this quilt!  I don't think I'll be ever making this particular layout again!  :-)

GWTW - détente

I think that Gone with the Wind and I have reached an understanding.  It's a bit tenuous but workable.

I've been able to find a reasonable pathway for the diagonal bits that will decrease the number of stops & starts (hence, tails to be buried).

Unfortunately, the LARGE blocks that have the appliques in the middle are too large for Lizzie's workspace.  I can't stitch in the ditch the entire thing; I need to do half the SITD; tie off.  Do that for each of the blocks across the width.  Advance the quilt in order to do the other half of the  SITD.  Tie and bury all the tails.

BUT ... once all that SITD has been done, the quilt  will have been stabilized from top to bottom.  I will then have only one layer to contend with ... yahoo!!!!   It's much easier to advance, roll & re-roll the quilt if you're only dealing with one stabilized layer.

I'm hoping to get to the one layer stage sometime tomorrow.

Here's a gratuitous picture of when I first loaded the quilt onto Lizzie.


This is the top border.  The coral triangle have a loopy design in them that looks like a Christmas tree.  A Christmas tree has absolutely nothing to do with the theme of the quilt, but it sure fits the space!  :-)

The narrow sashing has a traditional Egg & Dart design.  It has other names but I can't remember them right now.

The light fabric between the coral triangles is now quilted with a meandering feather.

OH!!  Once I have the quilt at the single layer stage, I need to remember to roll it back to this position to see if I thought to do an outline stitch around the edge of the feathers.  I bet I didn't. 

I was told by a fellow quilter recently that "all the best dressed feathers have outline stitches these days"!   Well, we certainly wouldn't want under-dressed feathers, would we?  :-)

GWTW - continuing the whine

Have I mentioned that quilting GWTW  is a PITA?

I'm continuing to do the expanded figure-8 in the odd angled coral colored areas.  The *point* is to treat the area as ONE section, regardless of the seam lines.

However, I am *so used* to thinking inside the box (literally!) that there have been several times when I have stopped at a seamline instead of stitching over it.

aaarrrggghhhh!

That means more quality time with Jack the Ripper so that I can resume the stitching and THIS TIME, go into the next section.

aarrrgghhhh!

Did I also mention, although you might have been subliminally aware of it from the previous blog's pictures, that these areas are on a *DIAGONAL*?  On a longarm, any longarm, even the big 26" longarms, you simply can *not* stitch a diagonal from one side of a quilt to the other in one pass.  You need stop, release the side tensions, release the locks on the rails and advance the quilt so the next section can be quilted, re-set the locks on the rails, re-set the side tensions and then resume quilting.

Diagonal quilting on a longarm is really, really, really obnoxious.  

My goodness, who pieced this monster???  And who decided against and edge-to-edge design?

Oh yeah.  That would be me.  ::sigh::

Really .. honestly ... I'll be so happy when I'm done with the center section of this quilt.  By contrast,t he sashings and outer borders are child's play.

GWTW - still working on it

I've had an off-and-on relationship with the quilting of Gone with the Wind.  After waiting for a while for my niece to decide what design she wanted (from those I suggested) in the outer border, I lost my mojo for a while.  The poor quilt languished on Lizzie.

 Then a returning client got in contact with me to schedule a quilt with me.  Whoops .. that meant that GWTW had to get done like Right Now.  So, the feathers were promptly quilted in the outer border.  Ya know, it wasn't that difficult.  Why did I wait?  :-)

But then came the *really* difficult part.  The center pieced area of the quilt was made up of some very strange angles.  If I hadn't made the top myself, I would swear that I'd never quilt anything pieced by "that person" again! 

The light colored squares would get continuous curves.  I like the look; they are easy to quilt.

But see all those the coral colored areas?  Oh My Gosh.  Those have been a continuing nightmare for me.  I have been completely stymied for a design that looks nice, is (relatively) easy to quilt and goes with the rest of the quilting.  I didn't want something that looked like "oh, she just stuck something in there".

And then the thread color!   If I used the same color thread in the continuous curves as the coral areas, it would blend in the squares but be contrasting in the coral areas ... I really didn't want that look.  If I used a color to compliment the coral, it would stand out against the light colored squares.  Ugh.

That meant that I would necessarily need to change colors between the small squares with the continuous curves and a different thread color for the coral areas.  Ugh .. I try to minimize the stops and starts because not only is it time-consuming but I tie and bury all the tails.  Ugh.
 

One idea was for a three-pronged spikey thing.   I actually did stitch out one coral area with this design and instantly disliked it.  It didn't go with *anything* else on the quilt. 

I spent some quality time with Jack the Ripper and removed it.

Next idea was a 3-lobed fan and a four petaled loopy thing.  I could do continuous stitching for this design but I wasn't enamored with it.

This design: discarded

Another plan was to do feathers in the coral areas.  This would tie into the feathers in the outer border.  So I put a vinyl overlay on the top and drew in some feathers with a dry erase marker.  (The blue line you see is painter's tape that marks the edge of the vinyl).

You can see that I drew several different styles of feathers.  The ones to the right are stylized feathers.

and the ones to the left are more traditional feathers.

I didn't choose any of the feathers; I think I actually forgot I had done them.  whoops.  :-(







What I ended up stitching was a loose loopy thing, sort of an expanded figure-8.  Below is a picture of the actual stitching on the left and the same area with the stitching drawn in on the right.   I deliberately chose a thread color that matched the coral fabric.  You can't really see the quilting.  I wanted that effect (or lack of it).  There is so much going on in this quilt that I didn't want a quilting design in this area to be competing for attention.  I just wanted a background fill sort of design.  This quilting design flattens the area, which is also what I wanted; it will allow the other areas to puff up a bit.

 See that triangular area?  That's another problem area.  I think I'm going to do a continuous curve in it also.  The radiating lines I have in the other triangular areas would look exceeding odd is this isolated piece.

So, at this point, I believe I have all the areas to be quilted identified with what I'm going to put in them.  It's been a *real* bear.   Gosh, I never want to see this layout again!

It's been One Of Those Days.

In my previous entry, I had a picture of the Jordy Tote bag I just finished.   Nice picture, huh?  Wouldn't you have liked to READ about it and see more pictures??

::sigh::

Yes, I really DID create a webpage for it.  That's what most of today's time was spent on.  Did I *include* a link to the page on the previous entry?

Nope.

Well, you can't say that I'm a complete doofus because I assure you that parts of me are missing.  And of all the things I miss, it's my mind that I miss the most. :-)

 So let's just REPEAT the picture and this time ..

INCLUDE THE LINK to the web page, huh? :-)

If you'd like to see more pictures, read about all the gory details regarding the customizations I did to the basic bag and get to the links I used to create this bag, please surf on over to The Jordy Tote Bag.  :-)

A new sewing project: the Jordy tote bag

Two items for this entry ...
1. There are now 2, count 'em TWO, tabs at the top of the blog!  I've created a new, second tab that is a page for a slide show of the quilts I've done.  I like the idea of you, The Viewer, having the ability to look at the quilts in this manner. 

There are 155 images.  Since I know I have done almost 200 quilt, this means that I'm missing a few.  ::sigh:: There's another project ... see which quilts are in the slide show and which ones are not .. then add the missing ones to the slide show.

There's no text to go with the images; it's just the pictures.  They are in no particular order.  If you want to read all the gory details, you still need to visit the website, Dread Pirate Rodgers.  From there, click on the "I love to quilt" link.  :-)

Having said that, I'm not 100% enthralled with this particular slide show.  I'll be looking around for a potential replacement.  Sometime.  :-)

2. Just because I've said that I really, *really*, REALLY need to get a whole bunch of tops quilted and finished AND just because I have a top already loaded onto Lizzie with some quilting done doesn't mean that I can't be distracted into a completely different project.  :-)

 The middle Pirate daughter requested a tote bag of a specific size.  I allowed myself to procrastinate on the quilting to make the tote bag.  It didn't take too long to make, even with the various customizations and back-tracking due to the fact that SOMEONE might have sewn something (or two somethings) incorrectly  ::ahem::

But, the tote bag is now finished and ready to be mailed.

And it's time to return to Lizzie and resume that quilting!  :-)

Opinions requested for border quilting

Here is what the outer border looks like:





I have two candidates for quilting this border: one is meandering feathers, the other is a combinations of elements (curved cross-hatching, ovals between the coral points and piano keys outside the ovals).

Both designs replicate elements found in the interior of the quilt, so they aren't "designs in a vacuum".

To help me make up my mind, I sewed a same-size, sample border using the same fabrics as in the quilt.  For me, both designs have the same difficulty level, i.e. one is not significantly easier or more difficult than the other.  The feathers are free-motioned after the spine has been chalked in.  The cross-hatched design involves a number of templates but is mostly continuous thread designs (there are few starts and stops).

I'm still in a quandry.  I like both of them. :-)

Sooooooooooooooooooo ... I would appreciate some outside opinions, please!   If you are so inclined, I would appreciate it if you would leave a comment saying if *you* like one design over the other or if you like them both.  There is no right or wrong answer; it's just your personal preference.

Please disregard the discrepancy in colors ... I had to photostitch the blocks together and the lighting was different.  Also, I didn't have a fabric corner for the cross-hatching design; instead I drew it  so you could see what it is supposed to look like. :-)

Here's the feathers:

And here is the curved cross-hatching design:

Thanks so much for your opinion!  :-)

This is my life

 

And that says it all.  :-)

Quilting schematic: alternating continuous curves & a flower

I'm pretty sure I recently lied to all of you.

I posted an entry for a quilt I made in 2010 but only now got around to making a gallery web page for it.  The blog pointed to the gallery page:  4-patch and Straight Furrows quilt .   On that page, I showed a drawing of the continuous curve variation and a drawing of the spiral flower I quilted in alternating blocks.  Since the web page was done 2 years AFTER the quilt was finished and the quilt was given to my sister-in-law, my memories of *exactly* what I did is a little hazy.  I don't have the quilt in my possession to examine, so I was basing my blog entry on looking at pictures that I had taken at the time.

One of my quilting buddies asked for a more detailed explanation of how I did what I did.  Once I started thinking about it, I believe I didn't do what I said I did.  :-)  My apologies.  :-)

But, I've now re-thought the quilting process of alternating the continuous curve variation and a flower block and have come up with what I believe is a viable schematic.

I drew a 3x3 grid for demonstration purposes.  Your quilt probably won't be a 3x3 grid but if you understand how this quilting path works, then you can adapt it for your own quilt.

Here's the overall schematic, showing the path for the two different blocks.   At first glance, it looks complicated, but DON'T PANIC!  :-)   It's not.  It's kinda like painting the Golden Gate Bridge (a common analogy out here since everyone has first-hand knowledge of how BIG the Golden Gate Bridge is).  If you look at the entire process, you'll run away,  screaming in terror.  But, if you break it down into smaller and smaller sub-units, all those small sub-units are very doable.  Eventually all the sub-units get done and suddenly the entire thing is done!  :-)

Remember, you can stop the quilting process at any time, but if you do, I suggest you find an appropriate stopping point, such as at a corner or when you finish a block.  I don't advise stopping in the middle of a design or, heavens forbid, in the middle of a curve!   It is just about impossible to restart nicely at such points.  Make it easy on yourself.  :-)


I know you're thinking, "oh my gosh ... how the heck do I interpret that??"  Well, you don't have to!  I've made a PDF in (what I hope is) excruciating detail that tells how to do the inner motif of the continuous curve blocks and the flower design.    I explain why I'm using different colors and what that mysterious green star is for.  I have detailed diagrams and descriptions on what piece to quilt next so that you are set up properly for the next motif.

There are two different designs here: a continuous curve variation and a spiral flower.  All the continuous curve blocks can be done in one path.  All the flowers can be done in one path.  But, the diagram shows each motif being done as separate quilting runs.  (a further thought is at the end of this entry, since I thought of it after I made the PDF.)

Here's the diagram for the inner 4-petal curves in the continuous curve blocks:  

and here is the diagram for the spiral flower:





Now ... as the overall diagram is drawn, you start (and end) the continuous curve blocks in the upper left corner.  As I look further at the overall diagram, it occurs to me that *IF* you started the continuous curve in the *upper right corner of the topmost left block* (i.e. where the blue arrow is), you would also *end* there ... and then, you'd be set up perfectly to start the spiral flower motifs.  This would make the ENTIRE quilting design ONE path.  One start.  One stop.  Awesome.  
 :-)


So, if you missed it earlier ... diagrams and instructions for quilting the continuous curve and spiral flower designs is available in a PDF.  Enjoy!

4-patch and Straight Furrows

All righty then ...  this is the last after-the-fact quilt I'll be posting for today!

Once again, let us journey back to 2010.  No, wait .. let's go further back than that ... back to 2005.

I was hand-piecing 4-patches.  Lots of 4-patches. I needed to be doing something "historically accurate" for a re-enactment Gold Rush mining town in the 1850's.  I made so many 4-patches that they were practically coming out of my ears.  The quilt for which they were intended was finally pieced in 2009; quilted and bound in 2010.

And I had a lot of 4-patches leftover.  A lot of them.

So, I made another quilt from them.  This one, "4-patches and Straight Furrows".  It's a free design from Bonnie Hunter's website but I changed how the borders look.  This quilt was pieced in 2010 and quilted in 2011.

I was doing a LOT of piecing (of a lot of different tops) in 2010; it was as though I was on an assembly line of piecing.  As soon as I finished one top, I dove right into the next one.  Not all of them got webpages made on a timely basis.

I've been updating the gallery pages on my website (man, just a whole lot of BORING technical things to change!) and I figured I probably should make web pages of the quilts where I could.  Hence the 3 new pages today!

Anyway, back to those 4-patches.  I thought I was done with them.  But no.  Oh no.  Little did I know that they were lurking around like dust bunnies.  I made another bed-sized quilt and two toddler quilts with excess 4-patches.  And ya know what?  I recently found SOME MORE!  My goodness ... where is the contraceptives for 4-patches????

So, during the website update, I made a page for this quilt ... there's lots of verbage and LOTS and LOTS of pictures, particularly of how I did the quilting.    The page is 4-patches and Straight Furrows.  :-)

Friendship Braid quilt

Here's another quilt I made in 2010, for which I am just now creating its webpage.  This quilt was made for a cousin who was undergoing cancer treatments.  I backed it with fleece so that it would be very drapeable and snuggly.

I had a wonderful time quilting this quilt!  I used a flower meander from the Darlene Epp "Pocket Guide to Freehanding" and hooked feathers from Sally Terry's "Hooked on Feathers".  I heartily endorse both books (or set of books, in Darlene Epp's case); both of them absolutely, positively WILL help anyone and everyone improve their free-motion skills and creation of feathers.

The webpage for this quilt is "Friendship Braid for Terrye" and has a whole lotta pictures.

 Here's what the front looks like ....

and here a picture of one of the borders. 

Annika's cat panel quilt

Way back in September 2010 (yes, 2 years ago), I made a child's size quilt for Mr. Pirate's grand-niece (who would be the daughter of Mr. Pirate's niece).

For whatever reason, I never quite got around to sharing it but now that I'm in the process of updating my web pages, I've done so.

What is interesting .. in an unpleasant sort of way ... is that I *forgot* to take a picture of the final quilt.  Geez ..what a doofus.  Although I've asked Mr. Pirate's niece to take a picture for me, she has never quite gotten around to it and I'm reluctant to keep bugging her.

Fortunately, I had created a note file of the process in 2010, so that was the basis for the webpage.  Sadly, details on the actual quilting are kinda sparse, as I hadn't quite finished the note file, although I did have pictures.  Thank goodness for the pictures!  The finished quilt has a scalloped edge, faux trapunto'd cat appliques and some nicely free-motion quilted backgrounds.

So, the web page for Annika's Cat Panel Quilt  is now up and for more verbage (oh, LOTS of verbage!), photos and links, surf on over to it's webpage. :-)

Jelly Parfait finished! whoop! whoop!

Oh hallelujah!  Let's stick a fork in it cuz it's done!

I pieced the top in April 2011 but just now got the quilting done.   I'm really quite pleased with my quilting efforts on this one.  Not particularly fancy, difficult or challenging but dang!  I like it!  :-)

I have String of Beads in the sashing, feathers in the big triangle areas, continuous curves in the pieced triangles and Carla Barrett's "Berry Swirl" in the outer border.   I figure it took me about 10 to 10-1/2 hours to quilt.

I have a webpage that talks in detail about the piecing journey and the quilting process, as well as lots of eye-candy pictures.

That picture is just a teaser! For all the gory details, links and more pictures, please visit my web page for the Jelly Parfait quilt.

Next up? Start working on my list of *17* tops to be quilted. Oy vey! ¡Ay Carumba! I have a LOT of quilting lined up for myself in the future.

Jelly Parfait - feathers

When I'm trying to decide what to quilt on a top, I almost always print out a full page picture so I can see the entire top at one time.  I put a piece of clear vinyl on top of the picture and use dry erase markers to draw on the vinyl.  The dry erase markers are very easy to erase if a design doesn't work out.

Unfortunately, because the picture is only 8-1/2" x 11" and the dry erase markers don't have an especially fine point on them, I can't always get the scale of the drawing to fit the picture.

That was the case with parts of Jelly Parfait.  I knew the swirly design for the border would be fine.  I knew the String of Beads would be fine.  I knew that the continuous curves would be fine.  It was the feathers that I wanted to put in the large triangles that wasn't working out nicely.

If I had a large enough piece of clear vinyl, I could have put that directly on the top and drawn the feathers that way ... but I don't.  What I did have was lots of pieces of tissue gift wrap, which *was* large enough to trace the triangles onto.  Using a photo I had seen online as inspiration, I drew one large curling feather in each non-pieced triangle.  It looked good enough for me.  :-)   The tissue paper also served as a reference for me when I got to quilting.

From experience I knew that printed fabric will hide the quilting.  That has its good points: if you make an error in stitching, chances are even *you* will never be able to find it after a while!  The drawback is that it *does* hide quilting .. which is why I don't suggest "fancy" quilting in print fabrics for customer quilts.  Why pay for something that you're just not going to see?

Then again, for my OWN quilts, I can do what I want.  And I wanted to do feathers in those triangles.  It also gave me the opportunity to practice more feathers with the implied permission that mistakes could be made.  :-)

You can see from this picture of a triangle in the print fabric, that you virtually can't see any of the quilted feather at all.  Trust me, it's there.  I used a very light lilac thread which blended perfectly.

For comparison, here's a picture of the triangle in the solid fabric.  This feather is *also* in the print fabric. 

All the non-pieced triangles of Jelly Parfait will be quilted this way.  If this was a customer quilt, I might have suggested to do some other quilting design in the triangles with the print fabric.

Here's what the corner triangles look like.

I'm still very much trying to get my feathers to look wonderful.  These are a tad sketchy in some areas; it's those very long feathers that need to stretch out to the very corners of the space that still look awkward.    I do like my fat little feathers, though.  :-)

But overall, I'm pleased with them. 

At this point, I'm on the 3rd of 6 rows, so I'm halfway through the rows.  After all the rows have been quilted, I'll do the bottom border.  Then the quilt gets removed, turned and reloaded so the side borders can be quilting horizontally.

Jelly Parfait - the journey continues

When last I left Jelly Parfait, it was in April 2011.  I was using it to distract me from a bigger quilt.  :-)   Jelly Parfait (the top) was completed and put on the Pile of Tops to be Quilted.

Well, guess what popped to the top of the stack??  :-)  I was fortunate enough to not only have the exact amount of 108" wide unbleached muslin available for the backing, but I also had a hunk of batting that was also *exactly* the right size.  In short order, it was loaded onto Lizzie.

I buy a bolt of 108" wide muslin (and try to use a discount coupon, too), wash the entire thing (ugh ... very tedious) so that I have a seamless backing available when I need it.   I'm not sure what content the batting is though .. it was on top of a Bamboo packaging bag, but that doesn't necessarily mean it *is* bamboo batting.  It really annoys me when I don't keep track of what batting is what.

I printed out a picture of the entire top and began to think about what kind of quilting I wanted to do.  This remains the most difficult part of quilting for me.  While I'm a good technician, I'm not artistic and generally don't have that special "spark" that generates a fantastic quilting design.  I have lots of books and reference pictures and diagrams to use as inspiration and instruction.  However, I find that have TOO many choices is just as bad as not having enough.

Eventually, I decided that I would use Carla Barrett's Berry Swirl for the outside border  (Berry Swirl is part of her Swirly Designs for Borders and Sashings diagrams).  I just love, love, love Carla Barrett's designs.  The inner border, made from the gingham "ribbon" stripe, gets a string of beads design.  (That design is actually called String of Pearls but mine aren't coming out nice enough to be called "pearls", so I'm going with just beads.  :-)  )

I'm now at the point where I have stitched in the ditch around all the large solid fabric and pieced triangles of the first row.  I'm doing the continuous curve around all the diamonds in the pieced triangle.  I really, really like the look of continuous curves in squares/diamonds and use Carla Barrett's directions for the stitching path so that it really IS one continuous line of curves.  (Don't be mislead by the title of the page ... the continuous curve diagram is about one-quarter down the page.)

While the Berry Swirl and String of Beads was done freehand (yeah, and it looks it), I am using a curved template for the continuous curve stitching.  And what curved template do I use??  Why it's Deloa Jone's Appliguide!  It wasn't designed to be used as a curved template but I have found that it has EXACTLY the size curve I need for small spaces.  I like it when tools are multi-functional, even when they weren't originally meant to be.  :-)   Oh .. and the Appliguide is a *wonderful* tool for its intended purpose too: helping you do outline stitching around appliqued designs.

I'll do all of the continuous curves in the pieced triangles before I move onto the solid triangles.  I've already drawn out a full-scale curvy feather on paper.  I'll be holding my breath and hope that I correctly translate the drawn design into a stitched design!  :-)

A long-time scrap top finally finished

Waaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2004, I taught classes at a local quilting store.  There was a lovely assisted living center nearby and the quilt store, local quilters and the center hosted a small quilt show.  I was asked to provide a demonstration of what quilting was all about by constructing quilt blocks.  Other people were demonstrating other aspects of quilting.

I thought about what kind of block would make a good sample.  I needed it to be simple.  It had to be *easy* to construct.  After all, the purpose was to intrigue people and have them think, "Gosh, I can do that!".  I also wanted to be able to use fabric that I already had on-hand.   I found a layout that (what my notes tell me) is called "Scrap Assassin".  It uses a fantastic amount of scraps to help get those proliferating scraps under control!

 To me, it's a variation of the God's Eye block. (I subsequently made a God's Eye quilt in 2008).  The God's Eye block uses the same fabric as a central diagonal and fills in the rest of the block with random strips. 

I have vague memories of a Scrap Assassin layout from Bonnie Hunter, but a look through her website doesn't show anything like it.  There is (currently) a book/pattern called Scrap Assassin Strikes Again and Scrap Assassin Returns, but this isn't any of them either.

I know *I* didn't come up with this layout on my own, but I have no idea where I originally found it.  


 The Scrap Assassin block uses a different color (but same width) strip for the center diagonal, also fills in the block with random color and width strips but adds a solid color triangle at each corner.  When sewn together these corner triangles form a diamond and gives the quilt a resting spot for your eyes.

And so I raided my scrap basket(s) and started cutting strips.  I wanted to be *just sewing* at the demo, not taking time to cut the strips. 

Left to my own devices, I tend to lay my quilts out in some sort of color organization.  Random doesn't come easily to me but for this block, random was what I wanted.  To easily enable me to JUST SEW and not be concerned about the color, I put the strips into a bag.  I would simply reach in the bag, pull out a strip and use that one.  Whatever it was.

It was almost a liberating feeling. :-)  Not quite because I did indulge in a small amount of micro-management ... if the strip I just pulled out of the bag was not enough contrast or was too similar to the strip it was to be sewn to, I'd pull another strip and use that one.  :-)

I also used a foundation to sew the strips to. Simply sewing the strips together makes for a very unstable block.  It's easy to distort while sewing; it's easy to distort whilst pressing.  A foundation prevents all of that potential distortion whilst providing a uniform size block.  Unfortunately, a foundation also adds bulk and weight to the quilt.

In the past, I've used VERY lightweight fabric for the foundation.  That worked nicely.  At some later point, I discovered that I could use tissue paper (as in the white gift wrap stuff) as a foundation.  Talk about being lightweight!  It was stable enough to sew through and prevent distortion.  It's also dead cheap to buy.  (Stock up at Christmas time ... it always goes on sale then.)  At first, I thought about tearing the tissue off (exactly what you do with paper piecing) but I hate that.  Really hate it. 

Then it occurred to me .. and I have no idea HOW I thought of it ... that when you get tissue paper wet, it absolutely disintegrates.  I wondered what would happen if I just *left* the tissue paper foundation in the block through the quilting process and then laundered the finished quilt.  To my utter amazement, when I removed the test quilt from the dryer, there was NO tissue paper anywhere in the quilt.  And believe me,  I looked and felt and thoroughly examined it!  The stuff was *gone*.   I was concerned about all that dissolved paper in our sewer system but further thinking led me to what happens to toilet paper .. that disintegrates in water also .. and *that* doesn't clog our sewer pipes, so tissue paper might very well behave in the same manner.

In any case, for the demo, I used both lightweight fabric and tissue paper.  After the quilt show was over and I brought my supplies back home, I packaged everything up and put them away.  After all, this wasn't a quilt that I had decided to make .. it was a 'quilt of opportunity' and I wasn't too concerned about ever finishing it.

So, now, let's fast forward to current times .. 2012.  My pile of projects (both ideas, pulled fabrics and self-kitted) and tops to be quilted is weighing heavily on my mind.  I decide that I simply MUST devote some time to getting those tops quilted and have a hiatus on MAKING tops.  And then the Olympics started. :-)

From experience, I know that I can't simultaneously watch TV and quilt on Lizzie at the same time; the quilting suffers horribly.  But I wanted to watch the Olympics!  That meant that I needed to work on something at my sewing machine instead of quilting .. just for the duration of the Olympics, mind you!   I also wanted something simple and easy to work on .. nothing that required decisions or thinking.  I remembered the Scrap Assassin project! 

Actually, it was difficult to ignore .. it was sitting right in the front of a cubby, staring at me.  :-)   So I pulled it out and worked on it.

And finished it.  :-)  The foundation sheets were cut at 8" square, resulting in a finished square of 7-1/2".  I have no idea why I originally made it that size, but for this layout, it doesn't matter at all.  Whatever size you like is fine.  Each corner has a black triangle in it, which produces that black diamond when the blocks are sewn together.

This one finished around a twin size, about 60" x 90".  I won't be putting any borders on it. 

It'll go to a local crisis nursery that I like to support by donating quilts for the kids.  Since the older kids (ages 7-11) also get a quilt when they leave, this one will be for them.

All that being said, I'm not entirely thrilled with it.  I think it's just too many jangly colors in no discernible pattern that adversely affects my eyes.  It's not just the lots of colors because I simply love scrappy Double Wedding Ring quilts .. but rather there's just no organization to this one.  But, that is totally irrelevant to the kids at the crisis nursery ... it will be very suitable to keeping them warm come winter time..

gosh, I love this template!

I have a Tin Lizzie longarm machine.  I just absolutely love my Lizzie and being able to quilt my projects myself.   There are certain tools that any longarm quilter needs to using the machine easier and to produce better results.

One such tool in my arsenal is Deloa Jones' "Rope A Dope" template for stitching a rope design.  It makes stitching a single rope design absolutely PAINLESS and ... OH MY GOSH ... the results are spectacular!   An instruction page comes with the template and I refresh my memory with those directions prior to using the tool.  There's also an instruction page on how to handle the corners so that the design looks continuous and effortless.

The template comes in different sizes, from 1.5" up to 3".  I have the 2", 2.5" and 3" ... so I wonder if the 1.5" came later?   I can't imagine that I wouldn't have purchased the entire set except for the smallest!  But now that I know there is a smaller size, I will have to acquire it to complete my collection.  :-)

On the website, I see that she has posted a sample idea of how to EMBELLISH the rope design.  Holy moley!  Is that a fantastic idea or what?  :-)

With her Rope A Dope, the resultant rope design looks so very complex but stitching it is just so *easy*!    Having that terrific design on the quilt makes you look so ... masterful and competent. :-)

I wish Deloa were compensating me for this post, but alas ... she is not.  This is just such a fantastic tool that has made my longarm experience so wonderful that I wanted to gush and let all the rest of you know about it also.  :-)

Another throw pillow: crazy patchwork

Spoiler alert:  Rene:  you said you don't read this blog at this time.  Continue to not read it, please.    To Rene's siblings and friends:  this project is for Rene.  She hasn't seen it yet.  Please let her revel in her ignorance of its existence.  :-)  (If I don't post about this project now, I'll forget all about it, being a card-carrying member of the Short Attention Span Theater Group).

Yep, another throw pillow!  I was smart enough not to make the same mistakes as I did on the knitted lace applique pillow.  Instead, I made a DIFFERENT mistake!  (didn't make the bias tape for the piping wide enough so that I needed to sew an extension to the piping seam allowance where the zipper was sewn.  Without the extension, there wouldn't have been enough fabric to sew the zipper *to*).  Heaven knows how I made the bias the correct size for the previous pillow but thoroughly miscalculated for this one.  ::shrug::

At least, I'm making progress in the mistake department.  :-)

I saw a small accent pillow featured on Hoffman Fabrics free project page.  I didn't like their fabric choices, but I *did* like the layout and the distribution of fabrics.

For my pillow, I needed to reduce the size of all the pattern pieces, as my pillow insert was smaller than theirs.  As this pillow is for my youngest Dear Daughter, I chose "her" colors (red) and novelty fabrics that reflect her interests (shoes, jewelry, baking, candy, desserts & coffee).

Additionally, I did some *VERY* simple crazy quilt embroidery for seam embellishments.  They are *really* simple because I really don't know how to combine stitches as the real crazy quilt embroiderers do.   That piece of knowledge has escaped me. :-)

The pictures below are just teasers! For all the gory details, links and more pictures, please visit my web page for the Crazy Patchwork throw pillow.

Here are two teaser photos of the crazy quilting embroidery ....

The 29th anniversary of my 30th birthday

Today is my birthday.  [looking at the computer day & time. Yup, it's still July 25th].  I had a very lovely time.

All three of our daughters called to wish me a Happy Birthday and to chat about what was going on in their lives.  [They already know what's going on in my: I sew.]

Mr. Pirate, as usual, pulled out all the stops to celebrate my special day.  He spared no expense on my behalf.

1. He took me to Orchard Supply Hardware, where they were having a Customer Appreciation Day with free hot dogs and sodas.

2.  Then we went to Costco to return an item AND to treat me with the free samples.  We also got some translucent crates to help organize my fabric stash.

3.  Finally, we went to Trader Joe's where we had some free coffee and their sampling of Mandarin Orange Chicken over rice.

My man really looks out for me.  :-)
.

Back on the ol' homestead, Mr. Pirate oven-baked some chicken for dinner ... wonderful stuff.


A friend from around the corner came over to visit.  We had champagne and the homemade orange-flavored cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting that she and one of her sons made just for my birthday.

It was simply a lovely day.  :-)

A throw pillow with knitted lace applique

The knitted lace on this throw pillow was created by my favorite middle daughter.

(Don't get your panties in a twist; I'm not slighting my other two daughters .... my knitting daughter is my ONLY middle daughter.  When you have three girls, one gets to be the Oldest, one gets to be the Youngest and one gets to be the Middle.  By default, they are ALL favorites of that particular birth order. :-)  )

Middle Dear Daughter is just the most talented knitter I've ever seen.  There isn't a pattern or project that she can't do.  And other than some very basic instruction from her older sister, she is entirely self-taught.  I find this talent simply amazing.

I don't knit.  I personally believe fairies come at night, when everyone is asleep, to create these magical items.  Mere mortals couldn't possibly do them.  And yet, I have actually witnessed middle Dear Daughter knitting!   I'm just not sure how she pulls it off. :-)

But knit this square she did.  I finally mounted it on a pillow cover by appliqueing it to the top.

Making the pillow cover was ANOTHER epic adventure all by itself, due entirely to utter stupidity on my part.

To see more detailed pictures of the exquisite knitted lace and read how the pillow nearly did me in, you can read all about it on the webpage for it, Throw Pillow with Knit Lace Applique.

That picture is just a teaser! For all the gory details and more pictures, please visit my web page for the Throw Pillow with Knit Lace

Forever Project: hand work done!

Recently the Pirate family went on vacation.  Whenever I am away from home .. vacation, long car rides, doctor appointments, etc .. I always take my current Forever Project with me.

What, you might ask, is a Forever Project?  For me, it is a hand-work project, whether it be counted cross-stitching, piecing, quilting, applique.  I have a grab-n-go container that holds all the supplies I need to work on that specific project.  The project has no deadline, hence the "forever" aspect.  It gets finished when it gets finished.

I have been working on a needleturn applique Forever Project for a long time.  Gosh, it feels like ... well, forever. :-)   This pattern is "Grapes" from Pacific Rim Quilting Company and is designed by Nancy Lee Chong.   I *LOVE* Nancy Lee Chong's 2 Fabric Applique designs!  Using her method, I learned to love needleturn applique; previously, it was a technique that I admired but would never do. (And yes, I have tried *all* *those* *other* methods.)

Grapes, while not difficult, does have, as you can see, a LOT of curves.  I wouldn't call Grapes a beginner project and you should pay attention to the smoothness of the curves that you are stitching.

When finished, Grapes should be about 24" x 36" ... a very nice size for a wall-hanging.

I figured that I'd have a pretty good chance of finishing it.  It would be AWFUL if I didn't have something else to work on!  So, I prepped another 2 Fabric Applique in anticipation of finishing Grapes.

 The other project I brought along to do, should Grapes get finished, is called "Peace".  Normally I don't make a pattern more than once, mainly because there are so MANY patterns that I want to do that I don't want to take the time for a repeat.  But, I was sorta pressed for time getting stuff ready for our vacation and wanted something that would be easy to prep.

I had stitched Peace once before, in August 2007.  I love the simplicity and elegance of the Asian design.  It so happened that my dearest Oldest Daughter thought the same.  Being the gracious and loving Mom that I am (and I am, right?), I gave her the finished wall-hanging.

But that meant that *I* still didn't have one for myself.  It was this design that I prepped for the second project to be worked on.  Fortunately, I had two fabrics on-hand that would work nicely with each other.

It was about the 3rd day into our vacation that I finished up Grapes.  I was very pleased with how it turned out.  I then picked up Peace and started working on it. 

I was surprised at just how EASY this design is to stitch!  There are inches and inches of perfectly straight lines to needleturn and even the curves are nicely gentle!  The only tricky part ... and after Grapes, it wasn't too tricky at all ... was the character for "peace".  This design is definitely a good beginner piece!  You can get your feet wet with the long straight lines before you start messing with the smaller, curved areas.

It took me exactly two days to finish Peace.

Now, I was REALLY in a pickle because I had NO needlework to do.  I really hadn't anticipated just *how* easy Peace would be after Grapes!  I did make a journey to the two local quilt stores (about 45 minutes away) but neither of them had a hand-piecing project kit available.

I realized that what I was looking for wasn't in high demand so the chances of me finding something like it was very slim.

That meant for the duration of our vacation (another 2 days), I read books.  I absolutely, positively adore reading books and brought several with me.  It was just that I wasn't quite in the mood for book reading; I wanted to be stitching!  

In any case, I managed to FINISH all 3 of my books, too.  Luckily, by then, it was time to pack up and return home.  :-)

After we arrived home, I was poking around my sewing room, looking for "something" when I ran across (which translates as "I rediscovered where I put it") another applique pattern that would be just *perfect* for Nancy Lee Chong's method!

This pattern is called "Manzanita" by Random Threadz.  It has some very interesting variations that I am also intrigued with.

ah, choices, choices. :-)

Note: the pattern is designed for raw-edge applique so don't think that you HAVE to do this as a needleturn project.

Isn't it amazing how different all four patterns look?  Fabric choices really make a difference!

Different versions of this pattern are:

"Branching Out"

"Spanish Sunset"

 

"Mediterranean Morning"